smiling and looking carefree on what appears to be a summer day.
The picture that once faded has come back into focus again. No reason why, not that I can see. But the picture is full and colorful and perfect.
I’d really like to be that guy smiling there.
Somehow even though it’s me, I don’t believe that the picture is real. It feels made up. I pick it up and shake it as if the image is going to go back to being fuzzy. But it doesn’t.
It remains.
For some weird reason.
An hour later I realize I really need to get a haircut, because when I get to Kelsey’s house my hair looks like I got struck by lightning. I don’t have dress pants, so I hope it’s okay that I’m wearing jeans. They’re nice, dark jeans, but they also have mud on them from riding my bike.
Kelsey doesn’t seem to notice any of that when she opens the door.
And when I see her I forget about what I look like.
She is a yellow rose sprouting in January in a dark, muddy field.
I want to pick this flower and put it in a vase and hide it forever. Yet all I can do is stand there and look like some stupid boy who doesn’t have a clue what to say.
“Good morning,” Kelsey says.
“I feel like I should probably go home and change.”
“Why?”
“’Cause next to you I look like a bum.”
“Oh stop. Come on in. We’re almost ready. You don’t mind riding with us?”
Kelsey really does look amazing in her long yellow dress and matching sweater. Everything about her is opposite of how my life has felt since coming to Solitary.
I wish I could tell her that and explain what that means.
Instead, I only manage to make small talk and then hit the bathroom to wet down the volcano of hair on my head.
Before heading out, Kelsey thanks me for coming.
“Yeah, sure,” I say.
Such an understatement.
Such a cool, casual comment.
I follow Kelsey and her parents out to their car to head to church, the way any family might get in their car on a Sunday morning. I long for a time when I don’t have to be understated with Kelsey. When I don’t have to be cool or casual. When I can simply tell her that she is and always has been a breath of fresh air.
A breath of fresh air in a life that occasionally feels the need to stop breathing.
28. Faith
The cold slaps me awake, and I get out of bed, remembering that I’m the only one in this cabin.
“Sorry, Midnight,” I say as I shiver and head down the stairs.
It’s five o’clock, and outside it’s black and silent. I turn on a light and shiver as I stand in my boxers and T-shirt. I check the thermostat and see that it’s fortysomething degrees in here. I forgot to turn on the heat last night.
Mom always controls the thermostat.
When I flip it on, I know it’s going to take a while for the cabin to become even remotely warm. I get busy with the sleeping fireplace. It takes me a few minutes to get the kindling and newspaper in place. Then it gets going, and I put some heavy logs on it. It dies down, and I go through the whole thing again.
I’m still not an expert on this whole making-fire-in-the-morning thing.
I’m still not an expert on living by myself, either.
I grab a blanket and wrap up in it and watch the fire slowly build.
I’m wired now and know I won’t be able to go back to sleep.
I sit in a strange kind of daze, thinking back to the first time Mom and I were here trying to start a fire. The first few times I attempted cutting wood with an ax. Our first few meals here in this remote, isolated, lonely place.
I could almost hear Mom’s thoughts out loud.
What are we doing here?
Yet Mom remained determined to make it.
Despite dealing with all the craziness going on inside of her.
And around her.
I count up how many months we’ve been here. Or scratch that—how many months I’ve been here.
Sixteen.
It feels like so much longer.
Sixteen feels like twenty-six, the same way seventeen years old feels like twenty-seven.
The crackling of the wood is a pleasant sound.
The picture that once faded has come back into focus again. No reason why, not that I can see. But the picture is full and colorful and perfect.
I’d really like to be that guy smiling there.
Somehow even though it’s me, I don’t believe that the picture is real. It feels made up. I pick it up and shake it as if the image is going to go back to being fuzzy. But it doesn’t.
It remains.
For some weird reason.
An hour later I realize I really need to get a haircut, because when I get to Kelsey’s house my hair looks like I got struck by lightning. I don’t have dress pants, so I hope it’s okay that I’m wearing jeans. They’re nice, dark jeans, but they also have mud on them from riding my bike.
Kelsey doesn’t seem to notice any of that when she opens the door.
And when I see her I forget about what I look like.
She is a yellow rose sprouting in January in a dark, muddy field.
I want to pick this flower and put it in a vase and hide it forever. Yet all I can do is stand there and look like some stupid boy who doesn’t have a clue what to say.
“Good morning,” Kelsey says.
“I feel like I should probably go home and change.”
“Why?”
“’Cause next to you I look like a bum.”
“Oh stop. Come on in. We’re almost ready. You don’t mind riding with us?”
Kelsey really does look amazing in her long yellow dress and matching sweater. Everything about her is opposite of how my life has felt since coming to Solitary.
I wish I could tell her that and explain what that means.
Instead, I only manage to make small talk and then hit the bathroom to wet down the volcano of hair on my head.
Before heading out, Kelsey thanks me for coming.
“Yeah, sure,” I say.
Such an understatement.
Such a cool, casual comment.
I follow Kelsey and her parents out to their car to head to church, the way any family might get in their car on a Sunday morning. I long for a time when I don’t have to be understated with Kelsey. When I don’t have to be cool or casual. When I can simply tell her that she is and always has been a breath of fresh air.
A breath of fresh air in a life that occasionally feels the need to stop breathing.
28. Faith
The cold slaps me awake, and I get out of bed, remembering that I’m the only one in this cabin.
“Sorry, Midnight,” I say as I shiver and head down the stairs.
It’s five o’clock, and outside it’s black and silent. I turn on a light and shiver as I stand in my boxers and T-shirt. I check the thermostat and see that it’s fortysomething degrees in here. I forgot to turn on the heat last night.
Mom always controls the thermostat.
When I flip it on, I know it’s going to take a while for the cabin to become even remotely warm. I get busy with the sleeping fireplace. It takes me a few minutes to get the kindling and newspaper in place. Then it gets going, and I put some heavy logs on it. It dies down, and I go through the whole thing again.
I’m still not an expert on this whole making-fire-in-the-morning thing.
I’m still not an expert on living by myself, either.
I grab a blanket and wrap up in it and watch the fire slowly build.
I’m wired now and know I won’t be able to go back to sleep.
I sit in a strange kind of daze, thinking back to the first time Mom and I were here trying to start a fire. The first few times I attempted cutting wood with an ax. Our first few meals here in this remote, isolated, lonely place.
I could almost hear Mom’s thoughts out loud.
What are we doing here?
Yet Mom remained determined to make it.
Despite dealing with all the craziness going on inside of her.
And around her.
I count up how many months we’ve been here. Or scratch that—how many months I’ve been here.
Sixteen.
It feels like so much longer.
Sixteen feels like twenty-six, the same way seventeen years old feels like twenty-seven.
The crackling of the wood is a pleasant sound.
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